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Tottenham Vs Bayer Leverkusen: Match Thread

poc

Well-Known Member
Aug 6, 2004
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Best attacker / worst defender.

Not great when your primary role is in bloody defence.
hes been good this season so with me at least has some good will left. Hopefully that is his worst game for a long while as he has been on good form.
 

Spurger King

can't smile without glue
Jul 22, 2008
43,881
95,147
It does make me wonder if there are issues in the background? Perhaps it's players out and players In had caused an imbalance? Added to injuries?

It's disappointing and it's time.to see something being done to alter the current trajectory. Not just words. It seems odd, that Pochettino was renowned for being ruthless in dropping underperforming players. Yet now we have the polar opposite? If this match wasn't a catalyst for change, in personnel and shape I'll be very surprised.

It's a combination of things, in my opinion.

Dembele was one of our stars last season, but has either been suspended, injured, or recovering from an injury.

We're missing our best outfield players in Alderweireld and Kane. Any telepathic link up play established up front or at the back goes out of the window with them out of the picture.

Lamela is completely out of sorts. Possibly down to contract issues.

Alli is out of sorts. Could be down to not having a summer break, and the added pressure of being a known entity this season.

Eriksen - not sure what his problem is.

Wanyama - he's generally been great, but he's broken up the Dier, Alli, Dembele combination that worked so well last season.

Plus football is constantly evolving, and perhaps Pochettino hasn't been able to keep his tactics as fresh as they should be.

We seem to have regressed a whole season, where great performances become the exception. We don't have the momentum we had last season, and the players are second guessing themselves as a result.
 

shoggy33

Well-Known Member
Feb 25, 2007
1,354
4,538
Really bizarre game that. our players were just awful, incapable of the basics, and we just didn't look like there was any game plan whatsoever. not sure why everyone is taking it out on sissokho, everyone else was equally shite. I think without kane/toby/lamela we completely lack leadership, and with rose/lamela we lack energy. 1 goal from open play in 6 games.... it's fucking woeful at the moment
 

shelfboy68

Well-Known Member
Jun 14, 2008
14,566
19,651
On the train coming back from tonights abortion all i can say is we were shit from back to front and its been coming for weeks.
Hope the club wakes up to the problems it has meanwhile sundays game i will give it a wide berth, think we are going to get our arses handed to us.
 

1882andallthat

Well-Known Member
Feb 2, 2009
2,821
4,157
I don't understand why Sissoko has played the whole game. He has been really poor.
I know, but with so many poor performances out there tonight there were more than decent cases for at least 7 or 8 others out there deserving to be taken off, not stringing any worthwhile passes together, abject defending that looked as though we were going out of our way to play ourselves into trouble, how they only scored one with the chances we were handing them is a mystery, and being completely toothless and non existent as an attacking threat, where do you start.....?

If they play anywhere near that level on Sunday we can safely say that our unbeaten Premier League run will not just come to an end, it will have been emphatically curtailed. I hope I'm wrong but unless there's a complete turnaround the writing is on the wall.
 
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rossdapep

Well-Known Member
Aug 25, 2011
21,906
78,642
Somethings not right about that Sissoko signing, he doesnt even fit the philosophy of inverted wingers. This has got Levy's fingerprints all over it.
But we were told that Poch pushed him hard on this one and that if he hadn't signed him he would have been pretty annoyed. Something hasn't been right with our recruitment, for all of the talk of identifying the right player it seems that we still are a little bit scatter-gun. There's about 20 attacking players across Europe that could give us something, a spark, some flair or energy. Sissoko gives us none of these things, well, maybe energy at a push. It looks like once again we had the opportunity to push on but got our recruitment strategy all wrong.
 

sak11

Well-Known Member
Aug 7, 2005
926
897
Deary me. We're in a battle with three seasoned CL teams, we're playing without our three best players (and Lamela and Rose), we're essentially playing away from home on a huge pitch that doesn't suit our play, and we're obviously going through a slump in confidence.

As far as I'm concerned, we're three points of the top of the league, still in the champions league, and our top scorer is coming back next week. And we've still got one of the best defences in Europe.

Cheer up folks :woot:

The "huge Wembley pitch" argument -We better get used to playing at Wembley bloody fast as that will be our home next season and if we continue like this then we will be getting ourselves relegated. It cannot be an excuse and they have to find a way to deal with it quickly.
 

ajspurs

Well-Known Member
Jul 7, 2007
22,987
31,167
It makes me laugh that 7 people so far have disagreed with this post. It contains nothing more than a series of facts. Just goes to show, people can't think rationally when the team loses. It's all emotions. Anyone who challenges the chosen emotion - in this case, extreme frustration - gets a disagree, regardless of what they've actually said. Embarrassing.

Yeah you are right, it's just hard to take many positives with such weight after seeing (for me anyway) the worst performance in a few years, I at least can't think of any worse off the top of my head. You probably wouldn't have gotten as many disagrees had you posted that tomorrow and not after that match :D You stating it's a slump in confidence is something people can disagree with mind, whether that's what they're disagreeing with or they're just angry I have no idea though!
 

jonathanhotspur

Loose Cannon
Jun 28, 2009
10,292
8,250
You should have heard the bashing Dietmar Hamann gave us at half time. Said we have no tactical awareneas or nous. Said he doesn't like us because apart from trying to win the ball high up the pitch, there is little or no variation to our game. I thought he was spot on.
 

Hoddle&Waddle

Well-Known Member
Nov 25, 2012
8,337
17,565
But we were told that Poch pushed him hard on this one and that if he hadn't signed him he would have been pretty annoyed. Something hasn't been right with our recruitment, for all of the talk of identifying the right player it seems that we still are a little bit scatter-gun. There's about 20 attacking players across Europe that could give us something, a spark, some flair or energy. Sissoko gives us none of these things, well, maybe energy at a push. It looks like once again we had the opportunity to push on but got our recruitment strategy all wrong.
Well the recent stories that Poch has demanded full control of transfers tells us that someone else has his fingers in the pie....lets all guess who that is.
 

Archibald&Crooks

Aegina Expat
Admin
Feb 1, 2005
55,533
204,721
It looks like once again we had the opportunity to push on but got our recruitment strategy all wrong.
Had it not been for the massive dragging of heels our summer signings would have been a LOT more acceptable and sensible. Levy panicked when he got it wrong and realised what the consequences were going to be, think about it, how Levylike is it for him to make a last minute signing and STILL pay over the top? Its completely against type. He shat himself.

And Poch stated he wanted his summer dealings done early..........Things weren't right at chez lane

I still say that it wouldn't surprise me if we were looking for a new manager come the end of the season.
 

diamondlight

Well-Known Member
Nov 16, 2006
1,263
1,326
The "huge Wembley pitch" argument - We better get used to playing at Wembley bloody fast .
You called it the "huge Wembley pitch" argument, as though you don't think the argument is valid, then you say that 'we'd better get used to playing at Wembley' - which suggests that we do in fact currently have problems playing there.

Make up your mind.
 
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